|
Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
 |
||||
|
Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
|
|
||||
330 upon by frights or elderly persons. Let me always see that young creature, I beg, whenever I come.’ ‘By all means,’ said the old lord; ‘the lovely young creature, by all means.’ ‘Everybody is talking about her,’ said the young lady, in the same careless manner; ‘and my lord, being a great admirer of beauty, must positively see her.’ ‘She is universally admired,’ replied Madame Mantalini. ‘Miss Knag, send up Miss Nickleby. You needn’t return.’ ‘I beg your pardon, Madame Mantalini, what did you say last?’ asked Miss Knag, trembling. ‘You needn’t return,’ repeated the superior, sharply. Miss Knag vanished without another word, and in all reasonable time was replaced by Kate, who took off the new bonnets and put on the old ones: blushing very much to find that the old lord and the two young ladies were staring her out of countenance all the time. ‘Why, how you colour, child!’ said the lord’s chosen bride. ‘She is not quite so accustomed to her business, as she will be in a week or two,’ interposed Madame Mantalini with a gracious smile. ‘I am afraid you have been giving her some of your wicked looks, my lord,’ said the intended. ‘No, no, no,’ replied the old lord, ‘no, no, I’m going to be married, and lead a new life. Ha, ha, ha! a new life, a new life! ha, ha, ha!’ It was a satisfactory thing to hear that the old gentleman was going to lead a new life, for it was pretty evident that his old one would not last him much longer. The mere exertion of protracted chuckling reduced him to a fearful ebb of coughing and gasping; it |
